Lost in the media: Evil Angels and late twentieth-century Australian true crime

Ellen White, one of the American founders of the Seventh Day Adventist community at Cooranbong in New South Wales, described the derisive journalism directed towards her prophetic visions and religious leadership as "the exulting, sneering triumph of evil angels." John Bryson uses White's phrase, "evil angels," as the title of his account of the trial of Lindy Chamberlain for the murder of her infant daughter, Azaria. In borrowing this phrase, Bryson signals that this is a book about the media - its biases, forms and power - in the increasingly media-saturated society of late twentieth-century Australia.